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| Going Home to God |
In my prayer today, I’m especially mindful of those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. I’m sure that everyone reading this post is close to someone’s grief, if not their own. Here are two prayer poems, the first by John O’Donohue and the second one of my own; and finally, a snippet from a post I wrote many years ago.
by John O’Donohue
When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.
A Solitary Tearby Austin Fleming
Do you feel the tear I seemove slowly down a creviceworn by griefupon your cheek?Now it stops,too tired to move,one sorrowed drop welled upfrom springs of empty ache,a solitary tearslowed, stalled,no place to go;no hand to wipe awaythe dew that slowly seepsfrom deep insidewhere pain poolsand spillsyour hidden secret:a parched heart’sfor a sip of love now lost
Lord, we believethat all the ties of friendship and affectionwhich knit us as one throughout our livesdo not unravel with death…for those who believe in your love, Lord,death is not the end,nor does it destroy the bondsthat you forge in our lives.(from the Order of Christian Funerals)
Let grief not be my home, Lord,
but the path that leads to you,
the road of faith I travelfrom my sorrow to tomorrow,
from despair to trust and hope,
from my loneliness and lossto serenity and peace-and even joy –in your strong and loving arms…
